


Grace & Diplomacy

by chaya



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dom/sub, Dominatrix, F/M, M/M, Multi, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-08 13:47:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3211403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaya/pseuds/chaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howling Commandos era. Peggy discovers more than she was meant to, and it works out agreeably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KiaraSayre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiaraSayre/gifts).



> A late gift for KiaraSayre, who is both magnificent and patient.

Peggy exits the hallway quickly, retiring to her hotel room just one floor up, and composes herself. She reflects upon what she just saw and heard. She puts no small amount of effort into analyzing it as reasonably and unemotionally as possible, fails, and decides that a calming exercise is in order. She has turned on the radio and is about to take apart and clean her sidearm when there is a frantic knock on the door.

Of course.

She slips back into her heels, looking through the view the peep hole before sliding the lock across and letting Sergeant Barnes in.

"I gotta talk to you," Barnes says, sliding past her to stand in the middle of the room. He looks much as he did a few moments earlier: a little drunk, civilian clothes rumpled, but now harried as well. His eyes are a giveaway, flying up and down her body, her face, not in his usual interest but in a desperate attempt to determine her reaction.

"I guessed that from the fact that you knocked on the door, yes. Tea?" Peggy moves briskly to the kettle and starts about heating up the water, ignoring the holes getting bored into the back of her head. It's easier to say these things as she's doing something. Keeps her hands from shaking, keeps her from thinking too much about what it all means. "I could even be so bold as to guess that you came to discuss what I just saw outside Captain Rogers's door."

"It was just a  _discussion_."

"It could be categorized as such, yes." She takes a deep breath. "I'm afraid between the body language and the... words exchanged... I have quite a good idea of what the discussion was pertaining to, and I expect that you're distressed by that."

When Peggy turns, Barnes looks even grimmer than normal. Ever since she met the man he's had the thousand-yard stare of someone who's been on the wrong side of a POW fence, someone who hasn't quite escaped it entirely. It's nothing she hasn't seen before. Now he looks like he's working himself up to walking right back in. "I - I was makin' advances. He... he's not like that, you  _saw_  him turning me down, so if you're gonna report-"

"I have absolutely no plans to report anyone, Sergeant Barnes." The words hang in the air for a while, and for some reason the Sergeant,  _Bucky_ , does not seem calmed in the least. Head down a little, he looks at her through his lashes, tense and untrusting like something that is yet to be tamed.

"In exchange for what?"

Peggy draws herself up a little higher and turns again, setting up the teapot and the cups. "This is not an exchange, Sergeant. I'm promising my silence without an expectation of anything in return." The kettle sings, and she takes it off the stove, glancing over her shoulder to ensure that these facts have finally settled in for the young American. He is blinking slowly. "Sugar, Sergeant? May I call you James?"

His lip curls a little. " _Nobody_ calls me James." But the bitterness is gone just as quickly as it came, and he deflates a little. Perhaps he has realized that, considering the circumstances, he should probably be a little more pleasant. "Bucky's fine, ma'am."

"Feel free to call me Peggy." It's an unusual thing for her to do, but considering how exposed he must feel at a near-stranger knowing such a secret about him, it might do a bit of good for him to understand that she is, for all intents and purposes, friendly. "That sugar?"

"Oh. Yes, please."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to everyone who helped beta the hastily-written first chapter.

Privately, Peggy agrees with Steve's denial of Bucky's advances. The risks are too high. If someone less understanding discovered that the two men were intimate, it could be the end of Captain America. Work must be put first.

**

Given more time around him, Peggy starts to see more of what Steve sees - or saw - in Bucky. He has his rakish moments that rub her the wrong way, yes, and he often holds himself much more like a vagabond than a soldier of high repute... but as the days go on, while the Commandos plan their trip to Austria and wait for Jones's leg to heal up, Peggy starts to see that the thousand-yard stare runs much deeper, and that Bucky is carefully maintaining a shell of his former self around a man he no longer recognizes. Hours spent hunched over the map turn from passionate (and admittedly quite strategic) debates to distraction, like the man is reliving something in his mind that will not let him remain in the present. It is exhausting him. Peggy starts to wonder if the risk Barnes took in the hallway last night was not made out of a desire for a bit of fun but out of desperation for something familiar. Bucky looks lost.

**

Being around Steve now is not as painful as Peggy had expected it to be. His mouth hangs a little open, eyes and nervous inhales betraying a man feeling very vulnerable indeed, but they do not speak about it. Honestly, there is nothing to discuss.

**

In the hotel bar, Bucky drinks and laughs and wraps his arm around the waist of a local girl with stars in her eyes. It leaves a bad taste in Peggy's mouth. When he gets up from the table to order another round, she sidles next to him.

"There's no need to put on a show," she intones calmly, smiling as if they are having a pleasant chat. "She clearly adores you. Don't set her up for such a fall."

Bucky swipes his tongue across his lips as he thinks. (This is a gesture Peggy is becoming familiar with.) "It ain't," he starts, and then tilts his head, leaning in a little more. "I'm not leading anybody on. Never have."

The bartender sets the beers in front of Bucky, and he nods and takes them back. Peggy reflects upon this.

**

Later, Peggy reflects upon what it might mean about Steve.

**

It's the second day looking over stacks of intel. Gabe's cast is isn't bringing down his spirits, which Peggy finds quite admirable. When the boys get up to refresh their cups of coffee, Bucky takes Gabe's so he won't have to get up, and, after a pause of consideration, swoops to get Peggy's empty teacup as well.

"It's gonna take a lot more than some Earl Grey to get a lady like that to notice ya," Gabe singsongs good-naturedly. To Peggy's surprise, Bucky just shrugs.

"Can't blame a fella for tryin'."

**

That night in the bar it's another girl. Bucky's into his fifth glass but still enunciating well as he sings along to the French tune that's playing on the radio, helping the girl to her feet and dancing her along what little space there is in such a crowded bar.

Peggy finds herself irritated. Not for the girl, this time, but for  _Steve_ , as she realizes now that Bucky's show is not for the rest of the world, but for the man who spurned him. Bucky's smile is charming, his hands just this side of improper as they glance over the girl's dress, and Steve is staring down at the scarred wooden table and then closing his eyes. Bucky is torturing him.

"You're being tactless," Peggy informs him, when the girl excuses herself to powder her nose between songs. Bucky looks at her, eyes surprisingly sharp for how much he's had to drink.

"Oh, am I?" His grin is sunny, wide, and it doesn't quite meet his eyes. He's a bad liar. It irritates her.

"If you had any sense you'd stop this charade and-"

"Are you giving me orders, now, Agent?"

"I'm starting to think I should be."

And the reaction isn't anger or deflation, but rather a dilation of the pupils, a further flush at and below the cheekbones, and something previously unknown, some gap in Peggy's picture of this man, slowly falls into place.


	3. Chapter 3

In the powder room, Peggy reflects further.

**

When she returns to the bar, things have not changed. Sergeant Barnes is still grinning cheekily at a girl he will forget, laughing with her. By the window, his target is suffering - unable to leave without inviting questions, unable to go over and stop Bucky without inviting worse.

Peggy pulls a chair up to the table for one and joins him.

"He really is quite ridiculous," Peggy intones, over the rim of her sherry. He looks at her like she's an exam he wasn't ready for, straightening in his chair and eyelids fluttering as he tries to compose himself. He's not any different than when she met him, Peggy thinks to herself. In many ways the serum didn't change anything.

"I guess he's entitled to a bit of fun," Steve says finally. His cheeks are flushed pink and she knows for a fact that he can't blame the half-empty stein in front of him. "I - I mean, Bucky's a gentleman. He'll walk her home."

"As he did with the last few girls he's used to turn the knife?" Peggy asks, and actually feels a bit guilty when his eyes close and he swallows, almost too fast for her to catch. "I'm not trying to push the blade any further, Captain Rogers."

Steve's voice lowers, no longer pretending not to understand what they're really talking about. "Then quit leanin' on it."

She leans in just a touch. His eyes tell her the same thing they always have: interest, curiosity, and now, as it has been ever since she caught the two of them in the hallway, an edge of fear as well.

"I aim to put the whole battle to an end, actually." She adjusts her hair and turns her chair just enough that she has a view of the cramped dance floor, canting her head and watching the proceedings. "See if I can't clean up the mess you've both made."

"What?"

"I would like you to go up to Barnes's room exactly six minutes after I leave," she says, quietly enough that only he should be able to hear. He doesn't respond, but he doesn't ask why or say no, which is sufficient.

"When are you leaving?" Steve asks finally.

"It depends on how long it takes Barnes to make a mistake." She watches the man as holds the girl's waist, swaying with her, laughing with what she can now identify is a false affect of tipsiness. His happy glow is all part of the game for him, she realizes, and that makes her like the game even less. When his hands finally roam too low, she rises out of her chair, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him to the corner.

"Sergeant Barnes, while you wear that uniform you had best mind yourself," she snaps, making no effort to keep her voice down. His initial shock is replaced by a sweet grin, and he leans in to clap her on the shoulder.

"Agent, I didn't realize you were waiting for the next dance. Should I ask 'em to play something special for us?"

Inside, she smiles. This actually plays into her hand perfectly. "Head upstairs and sleep this mess off before I report you, soldier."

Bucky's eyes flash. She can tell he's not sure if this is some kind of trick, a test, but just as soon as he glares he leans back, inclining his head in what almost becomes a bow. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am." He gives an apologetic little wave to the girl on the floor, nodding to Morita and Dougan before he lopes up the stairs to his room.

Almost done. Peggy whirls on Morita, leaning in and making sure to leave an impression. "You may be heroes, but you need to keep each other in check," she enunciates. "It's all we need for that idiot to fall into bed with a mayor's daughter and get us booted out of a village once we're mobile again."

Morita's expression has none of the lazy amusement of Bucky's. "Keeping in check," Morita repeats, hands slightly raised as if ready to surrender. "Definitely. Yes. Good behavior."

Peggy looks at him, then at Dougan, then finally at Falsworth, to whom she delivers a  _You should be the responsible one_  glance. He winces.

"My jovial mood tonight has come to an end. When I come down tomorrow morning for the 8 AM meeting, I expect to see everyone there on time and well-prepared."

"On time," Dougan agrees.

"Well-prepared," Morita adds.

Peggy nods, turning on her heel and walking out.

**

Six minutes to go. Her heels click on the stairs as she walks straight to Bucky's door, smoothing her dress and knocking sharply.

A few moments pass before the door finally creaks open. "Makin' sure I'm obeying the curfew?"

Ignoring his question, she pushes the door open further, strides through, and shuts it again before he has a chance to react. "You have four minutes to convince me that you've been destroying him not because you are a soulless cretin, but because you are dying inside and are making any desperate bid you can for him to change his mind."

He stares at her, steady, saying nothing.

"I believe it's the second one, in which case you are a complete fool. Rogers would never have submitted to something as petty as jealousy - he was preparing himself to a lifetime of seeing you throw yourself at any woman in the room, because that was so clearly what you wanted."

Bucky's lip curls in a snarl. When he lowers his head the rings under his eyes are more visible. "And I suppose you'd've come up with a much better plan," he mutters.

"I already have." She lifts her chin. "Take off your clothes."


End file.
